


The Road Goes On

by NerdAngel2698



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7963993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdAngel2698/pseuds/NerdAngel2698
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lara is a hunter used to small jobs, but this all changes on one hunt when she realizes she's in over her head, that she needs help. The closest back up are Sam and Dean Winchester and once she gets tangled into their lives the slow, easy hunting life she wanted is over; she will soon discover creatures and things about herself she didn't know existed. (Season 2 and onward)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road to Home

### Chapter One: The Road to Home

Green-brown landscape tore by in a blur as my black ‘71 Z28 Chevrolet Camaro sped down a country backroad in Georgia. I had lost track of where exactly I was on the small map that lay in the passenger’s seat next to me, but at this point I didn’t care. AC/DC’s “Back In Black” blared through the speakers of the car helping me combat the burdens that bore through my mind like they always did. The burdens had been there ever since I could remember, only they had lied dormant for years, until a few days ago, until I realized I had to return home.  
I had spent the past few years of my life riding around the country working the only job I was good at: hunting. Unlike most people, hunting for me did not mean game like deer or boar, it meant monsters, spirits, and the occasional demon. As a child, my father and brother didn’t teach me math, they taught me that salting and burning was about the best possible option for any situation. My brother taught me the books, how to spot signs and omens of various monsters along with the ways to kill the ones I couldn’t just salt and burn. He taught me to draw all kinds of sigils and Devil’s Traps until I had subconsciously drawn them on the pages of notebooks during my school years. Most times I was overly grateful for my childhood, that I hadn't been lied to and told that there were no such things as monsters, but other times I wondered what a normal childhood would have been like. When I thought like this the resulting remark to myself was that a “normal” childhood would have been absolute crap. Deep down though, I knew my sarcastic self-remarks were probably a front because many things would not be as they were if I hadn't grown up fighting monsters.  
My home lately had been my car, it had taken me all along the East Coast and through much of the rest of the country, and when it wasn't my car it was some cheap motel. I had met with other hunters along the way, though I didn't take a liking to working with any of them and often found myself on a job alone. Hunters are hard people to work with, most of them -or at least the ones I've met- are complete asses and have enormous egos; the ones that don't mind working with others aren't good hunters at all and I see them becoming meat for some monster in a couple years. Certain hunters are good for one thing and that's pointing out potential jobs. Even though hunters don't often work together, we know one another, who is closest to a job that has the capability to deal with it. I had received a call a few days ago from a hunter up north informing me of a job in Florida, my childhood home. Seeing that I had just finished a nice job concerning a werewolf in southern Georgia I couldn't ignore a job so close to me, no matter the emotional devastation it might cause.  
Only a day after I received the call I arrived in the large northeast Florida city and started my own investigation. While I did take the words of other hunters into consideration when taking a job, I didn't just rely on them because of my overwhelming curiosity. I liked to form my own opinions of people and their depictions of the odd events I had come for. This particular story was twisted with many first-hand accounts that all varied from person to person, almost no story I heard matched the story of another. Details were off, general concepts were complete opposites, only one fact remained the same and that was the scene of the hauntings: a school. Every story I heard had that one thing in common, that a school in which some tragic event took place was now haunted by the spirits of its previous occupants. This catastrophe was one of the details that kept changing, one account was of a cannibalistic principle calling students into his office in which none returned from, another said that the janitor went on a murder spree and killed dozens of children and a few teachers; the most believable of these over-exaggerated scenarios was a furnace that blew up. My conclusion from the research I had conducted on the Internet and from a few calls to local official record offices was that a furnace had blown up, killing a few kids, two teachers, and the principal. The only problem was records said maintenance had been called in a few days prior to check the furnace, it was cleared as safe, so no one knew why it would have blown up two days later. With that knowledge and the knowledge of spirits, my guess was that someone had tampered with it, yet I was unclear as to why.  
I was lying in the motel bed, staring at the off-white ceiling that had clearly been damaged due to time. I had seen so many horrible things in my lifetime it was a wonder that I was able to sleep anymore without chilling nightmares, those which would leave a normal person with cold sweats and trembling limbs. I could hear the almost-silent tapping of rain starting to hit the roof, a book of local history cracked open in my lap. I hadn’t gotten much further in my investigation by just reading so I decided that come morning I would have to visit the site of the hauntings. Thunder cracked in the distance and the lights in the hotel room flickered on and then back on, making me slightly nervous. I sat the book on the bed, getting up to check the salt lines I put under all the windows and the door were still unbroken. Pulling back the beige curtain covering the window, careful not to break the salt line, I looked out into the black night, illuminated only slightly by the glow of a dull-orange street lamp. Pushing aside the thoughts that haunted me like the spirits I often combated in my line of work, I placed my Colt .45 pistol next to the lamp on the nightstand, my final defense if anything or anyone could make it through that door. I had made and inherited a lot of enemies in my many years of hunting, although I'm sure some hunters would consider me young at the trade. Many of those enemies would be the supernatural creatures I hunted, but some were just humans who simply wanted to see me dead. As I went to turn the lamp out thunder boomed in the distance, I looked down at the grip on my gun still bathed in light: the initials L.G.W were carved into one side, the other side I knew read D.J.W. It reminded me that it had been a night just like this that had changed my life forever, and if only I had known about salt lines then my life could have turned out drastically different. Despite all of the thoughts crowding my head I was able to fall slowly fall asleep, sleep that was soon filled with memories of home.  
_“One day,” I remembered him telling me. “One day this gun will be yours, but don't tell your mother, she'd have a fit.”_  
_I remembered looking up into his bright, green eyes and giggling like any small child would when knowing they now held a secret. At that age I didn't even take notice to the depth of my father telling me he would soon give a weapon to me. He showed me where he had carved his initials and told me he had done that when his father gave the gun to him._  
_“I was much older than you when your granddad gave me this, see? Right there, my name?”_  
_“What's it stand for, daddy?” I asked, being the age at which a child only knew their parents as “Mom” and “Dad”._  
_“Daniel Joshua Wright, now what would yours say if I gave you this and you wrote your name?”_  
_“L...G...W?” I slowly spelled out, unsure if I was right. “Yeah, because it would be for Lara Grace Wright, that's my full name!”_  
_“Yes, it is, my sweet girl,” he said smiling proudly._  
_I remember him putting the gun away and wrapping me in a big hug._  
One of my warmest memories of my past came and was swept away in dreamless sleep that followed. My mind tried to bring back the memory, to sustain it in the dark nightmares that would soon crowd it, but was unable to. I woke at the break of dawn the next morning, whispers of the memory floating through my head and the faint traces of tears at the corners of my eyes. Nevertheless, I rose from the less than comfortable bed and started to get ready for the day that faced me, not days that had already come and gone. First would be the police station, formal clothes are definitely not a favorite of mine, but if you want to pull off being an official with enough clearance to do just about anything sometimes comfort must suffer. After I got all the information I needed or could access from the police station I planed to go to the actual school itself with a handy EMF detector. I hoped with information and a scan of the place I could rule out some culprits, though it is never that easy.  
Dressed in a navy, knee-length dress-skirt and white blouse with a navy blazer, and wearing the most uncomfortable pair of heels I have ever walked in, I tucked my gun in a hidden pocket in the blazer before leaving the motel. I only had to search the trunk of my car for a second before I found the small bag containing various fake IDs and some money. It took me a minute before I picked out the badge labeled “State Homicide Division” and used an interchangeable slip I created to make the “State” read “Florida”, ideally it could be made to read any state in the country. I pulled out the wood-and-cloth false trunk divider, pulling it back over the various weapons in the trunk that would surely get me a good amount of time in prison. Knives, shotguns, axes, stakes made of various woods, hand guns, tons of assorted bullets, and gasoline riddled the trunk of the Camaro. Though I failed at being neat, clean, and organized my entire life, the weapon-filled trunk of my car was meticulously organized down to the corner in which the small bag of fake IDs resided. When I was on a job I couldn't afford to misplace or get one weapon mixed up with another because my life may very well depend on it, and I had gotten to where I could grab the exact thing I needed from the trunk blindfolded. In my line of work, who knows when you would need to be able to do that, probably more often than not. I closed the trunk, the partition safely in place, starting up the car with its most familiar roar of the engine. My '71 Camaro had been my first car, a gift from my father when I was too young to drive, but promised to me when I came of age. I had seen the car in a run-down lot about to go out of business and it had not looked as sharp as it did now, that was the gift of it all, my father had worked on the car between jobs also teaching my brother how to work on cars. The sleek, black paint job looked almost new, I had managed to keep the wheels fairly clean, none of the lights were clouded, and the engine still ran like new; so it felt like I had the best of the best when really it was the care toward it that made the car that special. I pulled out of the motel parking lot and headed downtown toward the police station.  
Shortly after I arrived at the police station I was taken to the chief detective working the case, my badge being taken as real without question. The detective didn't know more than I did about the history of the school, but did know about the crime scene which was the source of my investigation.  
“There were two victims in a week, one was a surveyor and the other was a woman who worked for this company that refurbishes old buildings,” the detective said.  
“Was there anyone who would have any reason to kill them?” I asked, trying to rule out some possible culprits of the killings.  
“I've talked to the families and both said that no one would have had reason to hurt either one of the victims, that both of them mostly kept to themselves outside their jobs,” the detective replied.  
So, that rules out witches, I thought to myself, scratching the word off the notepad I carried as if I were taking notes.  
I already had my mind on spirits, vengeful ones at that, but even spirits usually had their reasons for killing people. Of course I still had a few questions for the detective before I made up my mind because there were still a few big players to rule out.  
“You said you were first at the crime scene, besides the person who discovered them of course?”  
“Yes, Jerry Saden, your regular businessman, saw Connor Atkins', the surveyor, car outside on his way to work. He said the lights were still on so he stopped and called out to see if they had been left on purposefully, but when no one answered he walked up to the gate and saw Mr. Atkins dead, he called us.”  
“What was a surveyor doing at an abandoned, rotting school?” I asked. “Isn't it a little late for that?”  
“Mr. O'Donnell wants to reopen the school, it's all over the news,” the detective said.  
“I'm sorry, who?”  
“Harry O'Donnell, the richest man in the city, you don't know who he is?”  
“I'm sort of...new, is there any way I could question Mr. O'Donnell myself?”  
“You could try, but he's usually busy this time of week, here,” the detective said writing down a number to call and a business address.  
I thanked the detective, telling him I would visit the crime scene soon myself and started off to Harry O'Donnell's.  
Contrary to what the detective thought, the second I showed my badge and ID to Mr. O'Donnell's secretary I got the man himself a few minutes later. I could imagine with a largely successful company as his he didn't want an official, even though a fake one, in his lobby for long. He fit the stereotypical “businessman” look in his tailored suit, tie, and the slight-overweight appearance. He welcomed me into the privacy of his office away from the sight of any potential investor that might take suspicion of me in the lobby. After assuring him he wasn't a suspect in the investigation so far, he was willing to answer my questions.  
“Why do you want to reopen a school that would take millions more to refurbish rather than buying a new building for a lot cheaper?” I asked. “Not that you don't have the money...”  
“No, it's much more than starting a school, that particular school has sentimental ties to me, I guess you could say,” the man replied in an all-business tone with a slight Alabama accent.  
“Are you from Alabama?” I asked, trying to gain more trust.  
“Born there, raised here, you?” he asked.  
“I'm from here, but my grandparents were born and raised in Alabama. What kind of 'sentimental ties'?”  
“You see, my mother and grandmother both worked at the school, my grandmother was the principal and my mother was a teacher. They both loved that school so much, loved all the kids, everything about it. The Board was about to change the school so that a lot of kids wouldn't be able to go there anymore. They devoted their lives to the school and both of them were there at the time of the...accident,” he said with slight sadness in his eyes. “I want to reopen the school, as a private school for children who are very special in their academic skills.”  
“I'm sorry, I was wondering, since the books don't say much about that day, if they could tell me more about the history of the school?” I asked.  
“That would be real hard,” Mr. O'Donnell said.  
“Why's that?”  
“Well, they both died in the school the day of the accident.”


	2. Not So Simple

### Chapter Two: Not So Simple

The answer of vengeful spirit never seemed more obvious to me as I heard this from O'Donnell. It made sense now, the coroner's report on the autopsy had been that both victims died of internal trauma and severe burns, burns he couldn't explain the origin of. This was almost as if they had died in an explosion, he stated, an _explosion_ , the most probable cause for this accident years ago. Then there was the information given to me by Harry O'Donnell, his mother and grandmother had devoted their lives to a school -something very personal to them no doubt lied within- which welcomed all students, even the underprivileged. Now Mr. O'Donnell wanted to make this school into one which would have to be paid for and would only let in the rich and academically superior, a cause for the spirits to be angered. This would explain the two victims, both were contributing to this idea, therefore responsible in the spirits' eyes. Another explanation of the killings would be that one, or both, of the spirits were trying to protect the children that also died in the explosion from being disturbed. A completely different explanation would have to start with the spirits of the kids doing the hauntings and would leave me without any motive, unless...unless the two adult victims were somehow connected to the mysterious explosion. The latter was a weaker theory, seeing as it had much less support, but I wouldn't cast it aside so soon. I thanked Mr. O'Donnell for his time, wrapping up our conversation before heading out of the massive office building with the intention to get to the bottom of this before anyone else ended up dead. Death, of course, was in the very nature of being a hunter, but it didn't make it any more pleasant to encounter. It was inevitable that death would be involved in most cases as a death usually sparked the investigation of hunters. If one was to take it even further back, death was the cause for many hunters to start hunting in the first place; it surely was in my case. In rage at bringing up those thoughts in my mind I rushed across the parking lot in frustration, almost being hit by a backing car.  
I made it safely to my car and dove off, heading toward the abandoned school, but stopping first at a fast-food-style restaurant. It was already around one or two in the afternoon, I hadn't eaten breakfast, and I desperately needed to lose these insufferable, moneybags clothes for something more comfortable. Once I had parked I took a duffel bag that contained my normal hunting attire out of the back of my Camaro, heading inside the joint. I went straight to the bathroom, not being able to bare the stiff, contained feeling these dressy clothes were giving me any longer. I emerged a couple minutes later having traded in the skirt for my worn jeans, blouse for a simple, gray V-neck, and heels for black combat boots, my light, army-green jacket draped over my arm. I slung the now dress clothes-filled duffel over my shoulder and headed to the order line. I decided I would settle for something quick and normal, so a burger and fries, not the lightest meal I could eat before possible physical engagement, but it would have to do. I sat down at one of those half-booth-half-chairs tables setting the duffel next to me on the booth side as I started on my meal. I was done in only a few minutes, the point of choosing a place like this, I grabbed my duffel before exiting the restaurant to carry on with the job. After getting in my car I put the duffel on the passenger seat floorboard and pulled out almost anxious to get to the school to figure out what I was dealing with. I certainly wasn't one of those ghost chasers who only went into presumably haunted places to get a high or a rush, no, I was a hunter. Which means that I go into presumably haunted places to take down the thing causing the problem, either to prevent ghost-chasing idiots from getting their half-wit asses killed or to protect innocent people who wander into or past the place. Now I don't consider all of the ghost chasers complete idiots, however I have inevitably run into a few of them in my life and only the ones who, after clearly seeing I'm not after spirits for fun, still act as if they know more about them than me. Only the ones who do this and then go and get themselves caught or anger the spirit even more, putting me in more danger to save them, are the ones that really piss me off. Hopefully, and with a little bit of luck, this wouldn't be the case this time though it usually wasn't when someone is murdered and the police are involved. It was only a few minutes from leaving the restaurant that I pulled in front of the chain-link fence enclosing the abandoned school. It was not surrounded by yellow police tape, as the detective had told me, they were trying to avoid striking up unwanted attention or fictional leads about the cases, but I could now clearly see why it would have so many chilling tales of its demise.  
The eerie, brick edifice was not in complete shambles, as it was still stretching its red fingers to the mid-day sky. Although the decades it had stood in disuse shone clear on the green tendrils of ivy snaking their way up the thick, white columns which marked the entrance to the building and the windows were broken and boarded up on both stories. The double rows of windows stretched all the way along the front of the building on both sides of the entrance. Palm trees had taken root at the base of the building, their height showing they were almost as old as the school. All along the base, reaching to the ends of the front wall, were all sorts of shrubbery, as if they tried to fence in the horrors themselves. The school looked more like a building belonging on a college campus rather than a once-elementary school, but it didn't matter anymore because it was heading into ruin. After seeing the school I was appreciative of my choice to start my investigation early, allowing enough daylight for me to search the place. The boarded up windows would still pose a problem as I would still have to bring along a flashlight, which would slightly hinder my ability to use my gun. Regular bullets certainly wouldn’t do anything against a spirit or poltergeist or any other disembodied monster, but my father and I had come up with a way to fuse salt and iron, the most effective monster deterrents, into the metal while molding the bullets. This method of ours had proved useful for years, so I was still confident they would work. I got out of my Camaro, the Florida humidity hitting me immediately as I made my way to the trunk to prepare for my task ahead. I popped the trunk, pulling the false bottom out I grabbed my shotgun and a good number of rounds for both the shotgun and my handgun which was still tucked safely away on my person. For the shotgun we had used a method my father had gotten from another hunter: filling the shotgun shells with salt. I took one last look at the school, took my flashlight from the trunk before I shut it and started to walk to the school.  
I pulled out the small key given to me by the detective in the police station and unlocked the fence surrounding the school. I cautiously headed up the crumbling, wooden front stairs trying to avoid widening the numerous holes in them by stepping through the rotting, white wood. As I put my weight on the wood it creaked and snapped under my foot, but otherwise held. I was about to pull open the grand and massive wooden front doors when I realized I had failed to take out one of, if not the most important, piece of equipment for this hunt: my EMF detector. Luckily I found it in one of the pockets of my light army-style jacket I had put on, saving me a trip back to the car. The detector had been a gift from my brother after I had been on my first hunt...I shook away the memories once more, I certainly did not need them, or anything, distracting me now. I put the EMF back in my pocket, having to use both of my hands to pull open the firmly shut doors. They caught at first, but with an extra tug I was able to pull them open, a gust of wind blowing from inside as if the horrors from within were trying to escape. It took me a second to realize that the gust of wind, which had lacked a chill, was not of supernatural occurrence and rather was a result of the wind picking up outside, carried through what I assumed were many open passages in the building. This wasn't to say that I wouldn't encounter anything supernatural in this building, in fact I was sure I would find the cause for the murders inside, but I did not know to what extent just yet. Placing an old, loose brick between the doors keep them ajar, the damp darkness engulfed me as I stepped inside the school.   
Immediately I had to turn on my flashlight to ward off the almost pitch black darkness of the place, darkness that unnerved me. It wasn't the haunting rumors which unnerved me or the fact that without my flashlight I was almost completely unable to see, it was the unnaturally silent state of the darkness that had settled everywhere. Usually there was some sort of sound in these type of places, winds making the wood creak, rats scurrying about in the floor, but here there was nothing, not one sound besides those I was making. The EMF was silent in my pocket, a good sign so far, though I had to move on, this place was huge and I was going to lose daylight soon. The light of the flashlight fell on the walls and floor which were both covered in graffiti, thick, meaningless graffiti. I continued on past the large, open entrance room into a long hallway which had many doors on either side, classrooms I assumed. I didn't bother going in them at the moment because it would take too much time to go into each individual one, and without the EMF spiking too much I had no reason to. That was the other unusual and unnerving thing about this place: the EMF wasn't going off. With the unexplained murders and the stories of the hauntings there had to be spirit activity all over the place, but the detector was hardly making a sound when I'm sure it would have been blaring at me. My intended destination was the old principal's office where I expected to find the ghost of Harry O'Donnell's grandmother, seeing as there was probably something personal of hers there. The office was at the end of the hallway I was walking down with cautious curiosity, I wasn't about to stray from my path to investigate one of the rooms. It might have been in my best interest to deviate from the direct path I was on, which was apparent in seconds. I took one step in front of me, the wood creaking uneasily under me and before I knew what was happening the boards under my foot snapped, throwing me down into apparent nothingness.  
The fall through the rotten floorboards to whatever lay below was much shorter a drop than I feared. It all happened so fast I saw nothing but darkness before landing on something solid in a heap of weapons and clothes with debris raining down on me from the hole I made above. I remained motionless for a minute or so checking over my whole body, testing things, making sure I was uninjured, I was for the most part. After making sure I wasn't severely injured anywhere I pushed boards off of myself, moving, my head swimming and my ankle screaming protest, to where my shotgun and flashlight had fallen a few feet away. Possible minor concussion and a slightly sprained ankle, not too bad of injuries for falling through a floor with two guns on. The echo of falling debris still persisted through the winding halls of the lower floor that wasn't necessarily a basement. It took me a few seconds to realize that falling through probably wasn't just the work of compromised wood, not just an accident. Taking my shotgun in hand I roamed the lower level until I came upon an old, rusty-hinged door to the side of one of the halls. Kicking the door inward, with little effort, revealed one of the greatest mysteries of this place, and the subject of my investigation, the furnace room.  
I was careful not to disturb any clue that might lie in or on the dust-blanketed floor as I stepped inside the dark room. In the corner I saw twisted and torn pieces of metal and piping that were clear relics of the disaster that happened here. Immediately suspicion arose in me because if the furnace room was clear evidence of what had transpired on the tragic day what were all the myths about? Exploded pieces of metal, as the charring painted all in the room showed, should be enough evidence for anyone to believe a furnace was the cause of the accident, not cannibalistic teachers or rouge janitors. My heightened awareness made me jump violently when the EMF detector started to whir and make its noises. I exhaled heavily, surprised when I wasn't able to see the white cloud of my breath in front of me, no ghosts in the vicinity then. Upon closer inspection of the rusting, twisted pieces of the alleged furnace I noticed something very odd and very chilling embedded in the metal. What I was seeing didn't make any sense, but it clearly had been blasted into the metal by the explosive force. I pointed my flashlight all around the room, revealing small specs of the curious substance to be everywhere, even in the walls. It didn't make any sense because this was a haunting, not suspected to be anything else, no signs that suggested otherwise, but there in the twisted metal all around was what most hunters feared to find on a hunt: sulfur.


	3. In Over My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the random shift in point of view...I wanted to start writing in present tense and I had already posted the other chapters before I fixed it. :)

### Chapter 3: In Over My Head

At the sight of the sickly yellow granules my eyes widen, my whole mind and body telling me to run for my life, to get the hell out of that place. Even though my instincts are screaming I don't turn and run, though I wish I had brought holy water. I frantically run over in my mind what I can use against demons: not much. Holy water is my best option, I don't have any on me, I know a few spells that would slow a demon down, but I don't know a full exorcism, I can draw excellent sigils and Devil's Traps, yet have nothing to draw them with, salt is only a weak solution. Overall, I find myself sorely unprepared to face anything this powerful on a job, this job in particular. I had shrouded myself with confidence that it was nothing other than a simple spirit that could be dealt with by normal means. Slowly turning around, prepared for anything, I walk out of the furnace room toward the decaying staircase at the end of the long hall. The whole way to the stairs questions bombard my mind. What would a demon want with a school? Why would it make the furnace explode? Was the furnace explosion a cover up for the demon's work, and, if so, why would it need a cover-up?  
I place my hand on the wooden railing of the staircase, trying to make as little noise as possible going up the snapping and creaking stairs. Odds are that the demon is long gone, but there is a sliver of doubt in my mind that makes me uneasy. My hands are tight around my shotgun as I come off the top of the third flight of stairs into the long corridor of the second floor. I can see the gaping hole in the floor where I had fallen through at the other end, debris was still sliding down through it. I start down the hallway, stealing glances through the open classroom door-frames on either side of me, trying to make sure something wasn't waiting for me to pass it by. A loud crash of debris hitting the basement floor makes me jump and almost pull the trigger on the shotgun. My father and brother had both warned me about demons countless times on countless hunts, warned me about their power and their danger. If a demon was still here I am utterly screwed, with no weapons against it. In fact I am so worried about the demon now that I almost forget there is a legitimate spirit threat here. I feel cold air settle over the hallway, stopping me in my tracks, I wheel around and was facing a pale, almost translucent face.  
I jump back from the form of the woman, leveling the salt-filled shotgun with the spirit. It is a younger woman with long dark hair that contrasts with the white uniform dress I had seen in pictures of this school, a dress teachers wore. It takes me only a second to pull the trigger on the shotgun to propel the salt-filled shell at the spirit. It disappears like a swirl of dust in a breeze and I start to run. The salt would only anger the spirit, causing it to come back at me with stronger force, I am not about to stick around for that. I had definitely recognized the woman spirit before I blew her to oblivion, though I can't quite place where I have seen her. My headlong dash for the stairs that leads back to the first floor is stopped stone-cold after what I first think is my foot catching on debris. My whole body clenched in dread as I realized I hadn't tripped on anything: I couldn't move. I barely catch a glimpse of what looks like a human before I am thrown by an invisible force through a classroom door on my left. The force subsides for a split-second, dropping me hard to the floor of the large classroom. To my complete horror I am picked up by the force again, heaved into the air, and thrown to the back of the classroom. Without dropping me again the force throws me backwards once more, I hear and feel the crash of breaking glass against my back as I am put through a back window. The force disappears again, dropping me from the air to what I think will be my death two stories below, but I fling out my arms and am able to catch the edge of the white window sill.  
It feels like several minutes before I am assured the force will not come back, several minutes of holding onto the edge of a windowsill to the bare agony of my arms. I gather all the upper body strength I have left and heave myself back up through the window. Still in shock from what had just happened I don't even notice when I cut myself on the many jagged pieces of glass littered by the window. Right now my only thought is to get out of this place as fast as my legs will carry me. I am limping from the shooting pain of a glass cut on my leg, but I manage to get out of the classroom with no difficulty. I pick up my shotgun from where it had fallen in the hallway and continue on at a quick pace to the first floor stairs, wincing in pain as I descend them. The force that had thrown me was not the power of any spirit, I have been tossed about by a spirit before, this force had been darker, much darker. I jump the last two stairs, much to the dismay of my leg, and push out of the massive front doors with haste. The sun hangs low in the sky now, which means I have been in that school for a good few hours, of whose passing I barely noticed. Nothing outside has changed since I left it earlier, my car has remained untouched to my grateful pleasure. I still have one thing I need to get done this night before I call Mike for the first time since I got this job. I slide into my car, throwing a towel over my shotgun that I have tossed in the backseat, and drive off.  
The name of the woman came to me as I was exiting the house, the spirit I saw was Mary O'Donnell, Harry O'Donnell's mother. The spirit theory was true then because I had seen the horrid burn marks all over her scorched body, just like the recent victims' wounds, but where the demon came into the story I haven't the slightest clue. I drive fast, pushing far over the speed limit and hoping I won't get caught on this important task. Papers with information I had gotten earlier in this job lay scattered across the passenger’s seat. I rummage through them with one hand, keeping the other on the steering wheel, until I find the one I want. I glance at the particulars of Mary O'Donnell's death and burial, only looking for one thing. Finding what I want, I toss the paper back in the seat and focus on driving. Within the hour I am at the local cemetery and, driving through the small lanes for some time, find the general lot where Mrs. O'Donnell is buried. I carefully get out of my car, shut the door with almost no sound from it, grab the essentials, salt, my lighter, flashlight, and shovel, and head out into the lot. I don't have to search too long before I find the grave site I am looking for. I place the salt container and my lighter in a safe place so I will not lose them and with the shovel in hand, flashlight at my belt, start to dig.  
The sun has been down awhile before the shovel strikes the top of a locked casket. I brake the lock with a blow from the shovel and pulled open the lid. I am able to scramble out of the massive hole I have dug to retrieve the lighter and salt. I stand beside the dug up grave, pouring salt all over the now-exposed, almost fully-decayed corpse, while I hold my lighter ready. After the body is fully covered I drop the lighter into the grave and watch the flames rear up out of the hole as if trying to pull me back in. Suddenly, the wind gains a slight chill to it, switching the direction from which it is blowing. The flames in the grave flicker in odd, jerking movements that are not at all normal for fire. I pull my pistol out of my belt, loading it and preparing for an attack. Odd lightning streaks across the sky for a second before disappearing again, but holds long enough for me to see the same human figure from the school standing some feet away. This time I don't question my body's screaming, I pick up my items and make a headlong dash for my car. I slam the door -into which various sigils are carved- tightly shut, feeling slightly safer.  
“I'm calling Mike as soon as I get back to the hotel,” I say to the air around me, trying to calm myself down before I call my contact. I pull out of the cemetery hastily, the flames from the grave quickly receding in my rear-view mirror as I put more distance between me and that ghost or demon or whatever it was.  
It is very late by the time I got back to the hotel, far past the time any normal person would be up on a weekday. I throw my notebook, filled with papers from this job, onto the bed before opening a beer I had gotten out of my car. I am not one to drink myself into oblivion, especially when on a job, though tonight I need something to calm my nerves. I stop drinking after I notice the room starting to shift ever so subtly, I still need my total awareness tomorrow in case I have to go back to that school. I pick up my phone and dial a number I have called so many times before. I know he will be up even at this hour, in fact, he is probably drinking himself.  
 _“Hello?”_ a man's voice answers, slightly groggy, after only a few rings.  
“You so owe me for this,” I say sarcastically. “I've almost died three times already and I haven't even gotten to the good part.”  
 _“Lara? You still in Florida?”_ his voice seems to lose its earlier grogginess as he realizes who is calling.  
“Yep, just getting a nice tan at the beach before I set off back north, what about you?” I remark sarcastically.  
 _“You're still on the case aren't you?”_  
“Well, that's why I'm calling, Mike. I burnt the corpse of the ghost-”  
 _“Good! You're done then. There was only a ghost problem, wasn't there?”_  
“If you would just let me finish-”  
 _“Sorry.”_  
“If you can go just a few minutes without interrupting me then I'll tell you why I called, otherwise you're coming down here yourself to deal with it and I'm out of here, okay?”  
In just a few minutes I am able to explain the details of the case, telling him all about the “accident” at the school and the force throwing me out of the window, up until the burning of the corpse. I notice at times my words had a slight slur to them as a result of the alcohol of course, but I honestly think he doesn't even notice.  
 _“A demon? Are you sure?”_  
“See, I knew you were going to ask that, of course I am! I'm not an idiot, I saw the sulfur. Quite a bit of it I might add. The feeling I got when that force had me was just pure evil. I've never felt anything like that before, not a poltergeist, not a ghost, nothing like it, so, yeah, I'm pretty damn sure it was a demon.”  
 _“Geez, aren't we touchy tonight?-”_  
“I almost died! Three times! That's a lot considering I haven't even been on the case that long...”  
 _“What do you want me to do about it? You're a good hunter, besides, I'm too far away to come help you. Can't you handle one demon?”_  
The simple question puts ice in my chest, making me feel as if there is a ghost in the room now, even though I know there isn't. “One” anything else, yes, I could handle that very well, however, “one” demon puts my body in such a great tangle of fear I feel like I am suffocating. My silence has obviously gone noticed by Mike, who then counters his question with an unyielding tone of regret.  
 _“Lara, I'm so very sorry, I didn't mean that. Demons are hard, they're tough to kill, in fact you can't kill them really, only exorcise them, which is also hard because you have to trap them and-”_  
“Mike, you're rambling, get to the point, please.”  
 _“Sorry, hang on, let me call some of my contacts, I'll see if any of them are, or or know of anyone, close to your area. I'll call you back in a few minutes.”_  
“Thanks, Mike.”  
 _“No problemo,” he says hanging up the phone to call other hunters._  
Mike was a good friend of my dad's, an old friend, they had known each other since high school and somehow both of them had gotten into hunting about the same time. My father never did tell me how, he never told me much of anything about how he became a hunter, especially why. Hunters typically aren't very sociable people, always hiding things from people in order to keep them safe or ensure they themselves aren't thought of as crazy for bringing up things such as monsters. However, hunters usually know of one another and some hunters, often the older hunters, know a good number of hunters, enough of them to refer them to one another for help or for jobs. Mike is one of those hunters, usually only consulted as a contact for hunters, who knows a great number of hunters ranging from all levels of experience. Therefore, I am confident he will find another hunter closer to me who has better experience with demons than I do. Demons are rare to come across anyways, unless something monumental is happening, they usually try to stay out of the crosshairs of hunters, though not out of fear of us. Occasionally there's something in the papers or on television that gives hunters the idea there's been a possession of some kind, but no hunter like me would dare to go after a demon alone if they had any sense. Demons are one of the most powerful beings for a hunter to hunt, they have a weakness to salt and iron like ghosts, but are not as easy to get rid of, as there are no bones to burn. In some of my dad's notes he said even some demons were not effected by salt or iron, rendering it completely useless. He always told me that being a hunter meant you must be tough and strong, yet you must always know when you're out of your league, when you need help. Now is a time when I know I need help, when I know I have to put aside my aversion to working with other hunters and put aside my pride of being good at my job by myself, to make sure I keep this town and its people safe.  
It is a little over an hour before Mike calls me back, by then I have taken a most-needed shower and have been able to eat a small dinner. I have also bandaged the long and shallow cut on my leg, along with taking a few painkillers for the soreness from my fall. I'll be very lucky if I can move tomorrow. I redid the salt lines as soon as I got into the room earlier so those aren't something else I have to worry about. I sit up on the hotel bed, my papers and research from the job spread out in front of me on the tan sheets. It had started to rain again, which a normal person might have attributed to the usual weather of the south. I know, however, that it might be a sign, an omen as others call it, from the demon being here. A few minutes after the rain started up again my phone rang, playing its ordinary tune, before I pick it up, scattering some of the papers on the floor. It is, of course, Mike, hopefully with good news.  
“Hey, Mike, find anything?” I answer.  
 _“Well aren't you just lucky today-”_  
“Uh, not really, no,” I say, giving a small laugh.  
 _“I meant, you're lucky because I'm so very good at what I do, I found two hunters who are about a day's drive from you.”_  
I smile at the good news, getting up from the bed to pick up the papers that had dropped to the floor.  
“Great, would I have ever heard of them? And, two? I really only need one extra hand in this,” I say, picking up some of the papers.  
 _“You might have, and they sorta come as a package deal,” Mike says, I can tell he was holding back something._  
“Alright, you gonna tell me who they are or am I going to have to read your mind?” I ask sarcastically.  
 _“You ever heard of Sam and Dean Winchester?”_


End file.
